Follow up on your first kiss or don’t even bother

December 11, 2007 · Filed Under Adventures in (Mis)Management, Recruiting in the 21st Century 

So you finally get the courage to ask the guy or gal of your dreams out. It is a fantastic day because the stars have aligned and they have accepted your invitation. You make all the plans as to what you are going to do, what it is all going to involve, times and dates. On the date, everything is going good. You both love sushi and are die hard Patriots fans. You complete each others sentences. It is a match made in heaven. As you take him or her to their doorway, you make plans to go out in two week (when you’ll both be available). They give you a goodbye kiss and your heart is racing. This is an awesome thing.

If everything was going great on a date and you had to commit at a later date, wouldn’t you follow up in a couple days and say that you had a great time? Just to emphasize everything that happened on your first date. Even if it is only five minutes.

If you are going to bother to go on another date more than a week out, you should probably just call to say that you had a great time and to confirm plans for the next week. That may seem like common sense to a guy that has already sort of wrapped things up in the dating department but come on.

So why do you think that the amazing employee you just hired isn’t worth the same effort? HR capitalist is right in pointing this out: you can’t teach some people to date and sometimes, you can’t teach them to be effective in ever step of the onboarding process.

Employees get counter-offered all the time. I hate them if I am the recruiter. I hate it so much, I could scream. But I love it if I am the HR guy trying to retain the person so that my bonus stays healthy. And I can play any game in the book if you like (used car salesmen beware). Obviously these sorts of things backfire. If someone was looking for a job before, you have to get to the root cause of that. But yes, I can go from hating counter-offers one minute to loving them the next. It is a bit conflicting but it can be handled.

I am going off on a tangent though. If you have a great person in line for a job, you have to assume they will be counter-offered at their current job. You need to do your best to talk to them before they start and say “Hey, we’re looking forward to seeing you. Here are some of the things we want you to get started on as soon as you get here.” You have to prepare yourself for what you will do in the case of a counter-offer.

These things aren’t difficult if you think about them but they are easily lost in everything else we have to do.

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One Response to “Follow up on your first kiss or don’t even bother”

  1. HR Wench on December 16th, 2007 9:34 pm

    Tag - you’re it! http://hrwench.blogspot.com/2007/12/dont-tase-me-bro-christmas-meme.html

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    Your HR Guy is a Human Resources Generalist practicing in the field. But don't let that fool you, this isn't a boring blog. I seek relevance and humor in a place we will spend much of our lives. Everything from workplace issues, job seeking and terrible bosses. Read more...

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